Word: formal
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...current usage, closure appears to be to justice something like what NutraSweet is to sugar: a modern substitute with all the taste but none of the troubling calories. A term from psychology, not law, closure refers to a general sense of emotional completion about a matter, not to the formal righting of a moral or ethical imbalance...
Toward the end of James Dickey's life, after his liver had sent in its formal resignation (in the form of alcoholic hepatitis), he quit drinking and--though a ruin of a man, hardly able to take 10 steps without collapsing into a chair--blossomed forth with an extraordinary intellectual radiance and simplicity. He displayed as never before a splendid gift for conversation, for friendship (I knew him a little), for teaching (he was a professor for years at the University of South Carolina) and for fatherhood. It was in that last period--his once massive and muscular body shrunken...
...strength of its surprise win over Brazil in the World Cup. Then came the Tour de France--or, as some bicycling fans are calling it, the Tour des Drugs--which limped to a finish last week under a deepening cloud. Five cyclists and team officials have been placed under formal investigation for using or helping riders to use artificial substances to boost their performance. As the police widened their probe, a Dutch team and all four Spanish teams indignantly quit the race, and the remaining riders staged two unsportsmanlike slowdowns in protest...
...taxes. They are your relatives. Evil is not confined to one zip code. Among the child-rapists, incest perpetrators, abusive child-care providers, murderous adulterers and sadistic petty thieves, I wonder where all the normal people have gone. Does society continue to have moral standards? Do we need a formal honor code? Do we--and I say this with trepidation--need more vigilant government surveillance...
DRESS The whole kit: business suits for the seminars, skiwear for the slopes and formal gear for a Saturday soiree that stretches into the wee hours...